Custody Inspection Report - Argyll and West Dunbartonshire

1. Custody is delivered throughout Scotland by the Police Scotland Criminal Justice Services Division (CJSD). This division is one of several national divisions which sit alongside and support the thirteen local policing divisions. CJSD is led by a Chief Superintendent who reports to an Assistant Chief Constable and in turn, to the Deputy Chief Constable for local policing. Custody is delivered in accordance with the custody standard operating procedure, which is updated and amended regularly to reflect changes in practice guidelines and expectations.

2. Custody throughput has been in steady decline since the implementation of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (the 2016 Act), and particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, which placed increased scrutiny on arrests and detention. Throughput volumes have increased in the past two fiscal years, though have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Argyll and West Dunbartonshire custody centres have seen a seven per cent increase in throughput over the past year, while the national throughput has increased by just over five per cent on the previous year (see tables 1 and 2 below).

Table 1 – National custody throughput

Table 2 – Custody centre cell capacity and throughput

3. Custody centres in Scotland are organised into clusters, each led by a Cluster Inspector. The custody centres we visited during this inspection, Clydebank and Oban, serve the Sheriffdom areas of Dumbarton, Oban, Dunoon, Rothesay and Campbeltown. Clydebank generally accepts detainees from the Glasgow and Dunbartonshire areas. Detainees from Argyll and Bute, and the islands of Mull, Tiree, Islay and Jura are usually processed at local stations and are either held at these for court or transferred to Oban or Clydebank for operational purposes. All of the custody centres are located within local area police stations.

4. Dunoon and Rothesay are ancillary centres located within the same local policing division (Argyll and West Dunbartonshire) though CJSD aligns them with cluster 8, which includes Renfrewshire and Inverclyde. Ancillary centres are not routinely staffed but can be opened by trained staff as and when required. The ancillary centres were not physically inspected but a proportionate sample of custody records from each were examined remotely.

5. At the time of our inspection, all staff observed the CJSD 222b shift pattern. Each staff team at Clydebank was made up of a police sergeant, a criminal justice police custody and security officer (CJPCSO) team leader, and either three or four CJPCSO staff, as it varies by team. At Oban, teams were made up of a police constable and a CJPCSO. At the time of the inspection, two of the CJPCSO posts were vacant and one constable post was vacant, with recruitment processes being underway.

Independent custody visitors

6. Under the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) is required to make arrangements for independent custody visitors to monitor the welfare of people detained in police custody. Regular visits to custody centres are carried out by volunteer independent custody visitors from the local community. Independent Custody Visiting Scotland (ICVS) manages the process and co-ordinates volunteers. Any concerns identified by custody visitors are raised with custody staff during their visits and outcomes are recorded in custody records. ICVS is also a member of the UK’s NPM.

7. During our inspection, we reviewed the ICVS service book that is completed following each visit by the custody visitors. This reflected a pattern of recent and regular visits with no significant issues raised.